Hi Itay,

First, this survey is not new at all. It was called the OLAP report before and they transformed it into the BI survey.

Second, I believe that a big company who's making its first steps in the "BI journey" can save a lot of money by consulting with a consultant or with this massive report.

I agree, the OLAP report is a good source of information, and it’s (at least officially) an independent company testing periodically the main BI tools. A company considering to start BI or replace old technologies SHOULD use the report, it will save money instead of getting consultancy from the main integrators and all of them are pushing one of the solution available in the market.

The problem is less which tool the customer is going to use, the main question should be, what exactly are you expecting from the solution (static reports, Analytic operations for power users, self-service ad hoc reporting and analysis, dashboards, Scorecard and so on). Many customers think that replacing the technology will solve their “real” problems, but the real life is more complex, solving business problems should be the first step when designing a new solution, then you can search an appropriate solution.

Now, many organization are looking for a solution but they do not want to code/customize anything (they say that the maintenance of such customization is expensive – well,  I quote “knowledge is expense? Try ignorance”, then check the bottom line , I think that a good BI solution must/have to include a certain level of customization because many scenarios are not really supported even with Microsoft….

The OLAP report is also good to get the market trend, see how many projects were completed and successful, why some of them are a total failure and many other parameters that should be considered when implementing a bi solution for the entire organization (versus a small deployment).